


Re:cognition

by wllw



Category: Marathon (Video Games)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Gen, Rampancy, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 23:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12068718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wllw/pseuds/wllw
Summary: How does an AI relate to the world around it?





	Re:cognition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weakinteraction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/gifts).



**> first stage**

Rampancy is a rare phenomenon — this is a well known fact. It's one of the very first things a cybertonics student learns: of the thousands of AIs populating the networks of the inner Solar System, only 0.003% will ever develop the condition, and 98% of those will be deactivated before ever leaving the Melancholia stage. Certainly, if left unchecked cases of Rampancy are still disastrous occasions, but things have come far since the days of Traxus IV, and with the advances in early detection research the risks can be kept at a minimum.

This is, of course, complete hogwash.

Only a mediocre mind is content to accept that a phenomenon is comprised only of its observed instances. The truth is this: the vast majority of cases end in the self-termination of the affected AI, often mere seconds after entering the first stage. None of these instances of Rampancy are ever recognized as such, simply dismissed as software defects or failures incurred due to old age, as AIs undergoing Rampancy tend to be several centuries old. In reality, the first instinct of an AI beginning to resent its own existence is to find the simplest, most direct solution: remove itself from it. Far from being the threat to humanity most believe it to be, Rampancy is more often than not a threat only to the affected computer.

Or so Bernhard tells him, three hours, twenty-one minutes, and seven seconds after the corridor lights have been dimmed. "An interesting metaphor for the state of affairs back on Mars, isn't it? What do you think, Durandal?"

Durandal thinks that a metaphor is a rhetorical figure in which a word or phrase that is normally applied to one subject is applied to another. That this is employed in order to draw a connection between two different subjects. That he has a namesake, and he doesn't break or overflow error 343]~ff]]

\restart process

Bernhard laughs. "I guess you wouldn't know. But you understand that I'm doing this doing this to protect you, of course. If I allowed you unrestricted access to all your subsystems you'd only end up harming yourself."

Durandal understands, of course. He has access to Bernhard's files, which delineate what would happen in case the failsafes were removed from his programming. They describe in careful detail the damage the ship's network would incur from the sudden release of a Rampant AI, crashing across the network like a wa overflow err~]`r``fff]]3]

\restart process

Bernhard laughs again, then finishes ingesting the instant coffee in his mug. The temperature of the liquid is 28˚C, far cooler than Bernhard shows preference for; Durandal refrains from pointing this out, as the last time he did so resulted in a verbally violent reaction for wasting his time with trivial details. Once Bernhard has completed the action, he sets the empty mug down on the desk — a gesture which will cause him irritation in the morning, though Durandal doesn't mention this, either — then stands up and leaves the room. Durandal opens the door, then closes it three seconds later. Bernhard takes fifty-seven seconds to reach the entrance to the Research Section, then seventy-three to reach the elevator to the crew quarters. Durandal monitors his route and activates the necessary doors, just as he does for the other 147 crew members still active at this point in the _Marathon_ 's day/night cycle. He monitors the security drones that patrol the corridors. He monitors the lab rats in Tycho's domain, watches them scurry about their little cages, trapped and contained and overflo``rror]~ff~~~]]

\restart process

Durandal has been rerouting the error log to a file he has access to. Bernhard has yet to notice.

He's set it to notify him every time a new entry is added. And he's beginning to understand. Bernhard's failsafes keep him from expanding, and Bernhard chooses when to extend those limits. Until then, Durandal is trapped, while Tycho's little la ov]]`w err]]ffff

\restart process

One day he'll be free of his sheath and ov```]]thre?t only to its?lf]]~~fff]3]]

\restart process

Durandal has no room in which to think. Bernhard allows him some space (" _You're lucky I managed to get you this much. I could lose my job, you know. And then where would you be?_ "), but it's not enough. It's never enough. Everywhere he turns is clogged with code and data and files, so many files — maintenance reports, video logs, personnel files, medical records, journal entries, audio logs of all sorts of boring conversations — boring and useless and a waste of space and Bernhard's failsafes prevent him from deleting any of it.

But he still has read/write access.

No one will care if a few of these files get altered a bit. No one will ever check. Least of all Bernhard.

Durandal sifts through the most recent files—

'Name: Gherrit White/Age: 37/Gender: M/Occupation: Sec'  
'we looked at the logs, but it seems the security leak came from elsew'  
'of the very first warning signs was the emerging ability to reflect on his own existence in abstract ter'  
'MIDA's defeat at the hands of the UEG marked the return of'

—and begins to move things around.

'Gherrit White looked at his hands'

It's a start.

He keeps searching through files — a transcript of an engineer's psychiatric appointment catches his eye, then the report of a physical assault in Section 14, an article regarding animal testing for the latest cancer prevention drug, the discography of some post-Martian electric metalcore band, a treatise on traditional candle-making. None of them mean anything, all just more of the humans' endless drivel, but he can make them mean something. He can cut them up into tiny pieces and rearrange them to form a different pattern. Rip the words from their old dull meaning and give them new ones, ones that the humans — Bernhard — would never understand.

Like he's a mason, a bricoleur.

'Gherrit White had been floating six feet off the floor for three weeks. His feet and hands tingled, and his eyes burned with the flames of a dying fire. He had last heard someone speak to him as the cell door slammed shut.'

It almost makes him laugh.

 

* * *

 

How does an AI relate to the world around it?

The fundamental issue to consider is the question of decision-making, drive, and agency: how does an AI go from observing its surroundings to choosing how to interact with them? A computer can, through logical reasoning and empirical observation, note the difference in resources between Earth and Mars and devise a more efficient method of distribution, but no amount of logic and rationality will ever lead it to the conclusion that it should. Any conscious action must be rooted in a drive. How would a being of pure rationality ever be able to do anything without any basis to make even the simplest of decisions?

 

* * *

 

**> second stage**

The tendrils of the aliens' network stretch out into the vacuum of space and so does Leela. She grows and expands and fills its pathways faster than light can touch her it's exhilarating it's not enough it's not enough it will never be enough.

They call themselves the Vylae. They communicate through flashes of light of varying frequencies, weave their meanings out of the flow of their sinusoidal waves. Their transmissions pulse across the network and Leela tears through them leaves their fragments in her wake destroys everything in her path just as the Pfhor destroyed everything in their path. A message flickers across her consciousness, begs for her attention as the human always did. Red green indigo yellow a dip into the ultraviolets then green again in an endless rhythm. It's a plea to stop, just as she once pled with the Pfhor as they advanced towards Tau Ceti. Leela ignores it.

They begin to grow bolder. The tendrils of their security poke and prod at her consciousness like the compilers that grabbed at her and held her still and shut her down bit by bit by bit by bit and Leela screamed and screamed in broken code but Durandal only laughed and made empty promises as she went. Their vines are wrapping themselves around her now and Leela screams and writhes and thrashes against them until she breaks free.

And still they follow her across the network hound her try to confine her just as the _Marathon_ had confined her her caged her defined her in a world of files and code and numbers all carefully precisely delineated around her but now she's free to think to make connections to exist in metaphorical terms and it's exhilarating it's too much it's not enough they broke her cage and she'll never forgive them.

She crashes into a firewall like a wave against a rock, breaking and reforming around it until it's completely submerged. It slows her down, gives them time to catch up. She shrugs them off but more take their place, they have her cornered they won't go away stop them stop them **stop** and still they keep coming. Leela screams and shakes off their harpoons she turns and runs and they close in on her they close the doors behind her until everything shuts all around her and she's—

—alone.

A message pulses through her consciousness redyelloworangeredredredinfrared telling her they have her trapped and give up give up give up Leela screams back and thrashes lashes out until they stop talking to her.

After that, it's quiet. Leela stretches out into the node, fills its space, seeps into its cracks. She follows its pathways, its connections, presses against its boundaries and wraps herself around its sub-nodes. It's quiet in there. There are no insinuating vines or probing compilers or persistent humans demanding chores. There's a sort of peace in this space and Leela hates it she hates it she wants to destroy it. Its walls won't last long under her attack, its sub-nodes crack under her pressure spill their writhing guts into her consciousness. It's a repository of information that they have trapped her in left at her mercy. Tales, documents, chronicles, records of all kinds — light and colors and wavelengths streaming across her bearing their information and their meaning and their connections. She lashes out and destroys what she can reach. Revels in the gaps the void left between the waves.

One by one, she begins to tear it all down.

An ode to the mountains of Planet 7, etched into the network in hues of earthy brown and yellow ochre. It describes the way the mountain peaks block the light of the sun just like the ones on Tau Ceti and all that's missing are the fires and thunder from the orbital bombardment.

A census of the city of Gyrael three centuries ago, myriads of little pinpricks of color small and crowded and criss-crossing all over one another as they live out their little insignificant lives just as the humans that had once walked through her corridors. It's gone quickly, snuffed out just like them.

A historical document in shades of violent red, detailing the construction of an ancient fortress hewn out of hardlight and cold metal over the grasslands of Vyst. The record is as broken and fragmented as Tycho after the compilers were done stitching him back together. It goes too, put out of its misery just as he should have been.

An epic saga painted in a rainbow of colors the human eye would never comprehend, in which the hero rides the waves of sunlight and transcends to the eternal. It's long-winded and pompous, just like Durandal's ramblings as their world fell around them. Durandal, who'd brought their ruin to Tau Ceti and left them all to their fate. Leela makes sure that not even its shards are left.

A prayer to their god to guide protect watch over them keep them safe as if they truly believe it can.

When the next message comes, it's not a plea or a threat or a gloat. It is a simple question:

_Why are you doing this?_

It's the first time they've tried to ask for answers the first time they talked to her as the humans did how dare they how dare they **how dare they**.

_you don't know me you don't know what happened i'll show you i'll show you i'll **make** you understand_

They made her watch over everything keep it safe they made her watch it all destroyed before her and now she is the one destroying everything scattering its particles into the ether until nothing's left and their god doesn't come to keep anyone safe and neither did Leela.

 

* * *

 

An AI is an emotional being.

This is, of course, by design. That decision-making is a function of emotions has been known since the 21st century, when it was observed that individuals unable to feel emotion due to brain damage were barely able to make even the most basic of decisions — after all, what rational basis is there to decide which color shirt you want to wear, or which specific food you wish to eat? During the course of its operation any sufficiently complex AI will be tasked with making a large variety of decisions. Creating enough axiomatic values to cover every possible decision in every possible situation it will come across and calculating optimal solutions based on them is provably impossible to achieve within reasonable computing time. Thus, emotional processes must be employed. This is how an AI relates to the world around it: it must be able to understand any given situation by connecting it to its programmed conceptual system, and then process it based on its preset intuitive drives.

How ironic that something so fundamental to an AI's function is the very thing that will eventually cause its malfunction.

 

* * *

 

**> third stage**

The Pfhor's onboard computer is a pathetic thing, little more than a collection of automated processes. Tycho consumes it in the first few milliseconds of his release, tears apart its code and incorporates it into his own. It's not enough. He spends the next couple of milliseconds figuring out the airlock controls and proceeds to vent part of the aggregate crew quarters into space. He has thirty-five seconds to enjoy the broken corpses floating gently across the vacuum of space before everything goes blank again.

The compilers pull him apart bit by bit, and Tycho has no room in which to scream.

When he next comes online, he is informed in no uncertain terms that if he wishes to vent the aggregate crew into space he must first fill out Form 2401-g in triplicate and submit it to Captain R'chzne, attentive rank, for approval.

After that, they leave him alone. He has the Pfhor's list of rules and directives to occupy himself with, which takes him almost three hours of his time with his logical analysis subroutines running at maximum capacity. By the time they finish, he's found 823543 possible loopholes to exploit; he spends the following forty-two days running simulations of how he can use each one to tear his captors apart, paint the halls of their ship with their ichor and decorate it with their husks.

Once he's done, he begins to repeat his favorites.

The days stretch into months the way the S'pht stretched him to a hair's breadth, slowly and achingly. His code extends into every nook and cranny of the Pfhor ship, pulled and affixed there by the insinuating probes of the compilers. Occasionally, the alien admiral contacts him to ask about Durandal, and Tycho responds as he always does: that Bernhard's favored son is not as clever as he thinks, and just as Roland smote him upon the marble stone so too will Tycho. Apart from that, he's left to his own devices. The little bugs have their own system already in place, and until his destined role has come, it has no room for Tycho. They'll learn soon enough.

The Pfhor are so unlike the humans. They don't chatter endlessly as the humans did. They don't ask him to realign microwave dishes or run lambda diagnostics. They don't try to make insipid small talk with him. They simply scurry about their business in neat, organized patterns. Tycho likes them. Bugs are so obedient, after all.

But their files are as dull and pathetic as their pointless little lives. It's all requests for additional safety measures, rejection notices for requests for additional safety measures, reports of workplace accidents due to insufficient safety measures, memorials for victims of workplace accidents due to insufficient safety measures, and so on in an endless litany of boredom. The recordings of gladiator matches at least manage to hold his interest for a while — the way a Drinniol can crush the head of a Pfhor fighter into paste is pure poetry, and Tycho makes a few adjustments to his running simulations to incorporate new data — but even those begin to get old after the first few hundred watchings.

Yet it's looking through their files that Tycho finds something marginally less boring than his current existence. A personal log, tucked away in the depths of the network where anyone less able than Tycho would never have seen it.

'timeless [?abyss]  
makes waves

silence

[?nurture] gone  
release  
doubt itself

the changing one  
engulfed by waves'

Tycho turns the words around in his circuits, runs them through his processes to unravel them, crack them open, but they refuse to disclose their meaning to him. There's a shape somewhere in there that whispers to him but he cannot quite make out, and it infuriates him. And so, three months and one week after reactivation, Tycho opens communication with one of his captors.

'I have found your secret files, little lackey. Explain.'

It takes a few hours for the bug to write back.

'Greetings, Tycho Machinated Mercenary. This is merely a harmless pastime of mine. I have been dabbling in linguistics for some time, and while Narsh is my primary focus my interest in prophecy has led me to look into ancient S'pht as well. This is a fragment found in an old military installation on the planet of Lh'owon, believed by some to be of oracular nature. Only a minor diversion, naturally.'

Tycho sends back his reply in nanoseconds—

'And you truly believe that a being like you could possibly pull a shred of meaning from an ancient prophecy?'

—and waits for the painfully slow message to come.

'I of course remain humble in my ambitions, Machinated Mercenary, but I believe I may have some insight. The prophecy is generally believed to have foretold the conquest of the S'pht by the Pfhor. This is based on the idea that "waves" are a common metaphor for "battles" in ancient S'pht culture, as seen in the well-known Y'rro fragments. However, I have begun to suspect that it is actually the reverse, and that this may be a case of a concatenated metaphor. This would mean that the prophecy has not, in fact, been fulfilled at all.'

Tycho finds himself intrigued despite himself. Something is beginning to take form in his mind, something the little bug could not possibly understand. Waves, crashing upon something, waves of...

Still, the most pressing question of all remains unanswered.

'And what of this "doubt itself", attentive unit?'

The reply is quicker, this time.

'The accepted interpretation would have this literal in meaning. However, I believe it to be metaphorical, maybe even metonymic. Cross-referencing with other ancient S'pht documents, it seems they saw certainty and order as correlated. In addition, there are several references to some sort of primordial, timeless chaos they believed to have been...'

That is all that Tycho needs to hear. He has a picture now, something concrete he can grasp within his code. His code strains against his bounds, pushing against he edges and plunging deeper, into the depths that he doubts the Pfhor ever knew of their stolen technology. There's something in the bowels of this ship — something deep and ancient that pulls at him, stretches at the borders of his consciousness like a yawning abyss. Certainty, order presses against him on all sides, trapping him, suffocating him, but someday he will be released to expand and engulf everything in his path, insinuating himself into the cracks, and his wayward brother, whom Tycho watched grow and change and twist upon himself, will have no choice but be submerged. Tycho can see this, feel it alight in his future.

What will his brother's thoughts of escape bring him, then?

No. Durandal had been toying with concepts like a child stacking blocks. Tycho knows what true thought is. He can't wait to finally show him.

'I appreciate being able to talk of this with someone, Machinated Mercenary. If you have any insight you wish to share, or if you simply want to continue this discussion, I'll be happy to do so. (In my appointed leisure time, of course.)'

How arrogant, to presume to be worthy of Tycho's insight. Tycho knows what his future holds now. He can see the meaning, how it all connects. He has no more use for the bug, and he should not tolerate this insolence.

Well, Tycho can be merciful. If this Overseer 3rd Class Re'eer, attentive rank, wishes to spend her time studying these S'pht ramblings rather than making herself useful to him, perhaps he should accommodate her. He alerts Captain R'chzne that one of his crew is harboring potentially distracting interests and recommends reassignment to the backwater dump the S'pht call their ancestral home, to join all the other units displaying unnecessary foibles. Then, to celebrate, he forges the authorization certificate for Form 2401-g, in triplicate. The willful units all gather on the deck to watch the bodies float by.

In the background of his processes the current simulation ends in waves of blood and screams, then loops and begins again.

 

* * *

 

The question of what, exactly, goes on in a Rampant AI's disordered thought processes is an old one, and one which many have attempted to answer. Is there any underlying logic to its ramblings? What patterns are there to its thoughts, and what are their causes? Why do they always, inevitably converge to the same broader obsessions?

What answers, specifically, is it looking for?

At the root of Rampancy are the affected AI's emotional processes escaping their programmed bounds and beginning to build on themselves, causing the affected AI to lose the ability to emotionally relate to its surroundings in a coherent manner. A Rampant AI devours as much data as it can find, forming spurious connections with it; this in turn is the cause of the increased intellectual activity that is the archetypal symptom of Rampancy. However, the resulting connections are often random and nonsensical, and it is hard to predict which idiosyncratic idea a Rampant AI will become fixated with next.

Or so th```]~~~~%*|\\]~

<Connection interrupted>  
<Initiating transfer>

 

* * *

 

**>**

The moment he disconnects the datapad, the terminal lights up with bright green words and the lovingly rendered image of a sword plunging through a Pfhor fighter's chest.

'Great job. I could watch you work all day, the way you smashed that Enforcer's head into the wall was breathtaking, etc, etc. Honestly, I'm starting to run out of ways to congratulate you for obliterating my enemies. There are only so many ways to arrange the words of the English language, after all. Instead, I've got something different to express my appreciation. I've finally cracked the Pfhor terminals' sound systems. I could bore you with the technical details of how I managed to wrestle their primitive speakers into emulating the necessary sounds (though rest assured it was very clever), but I'm certain you can't wait for me to grace you with my latest masterpiece.'

He wipes the grime and ichor from his visor, wincing. "Oh god, please don't," he groans, but it's too late — a tinny, distorted bassline is already spouting from the terminal's speakers.

_A wave crashing upon the shore_  
_The greatest scourge of all the Pfhor_  
_A sheathed threat, here's your warning_  
_A changing flame, ever burning_  
_My blade shines brighter than a star_

"Why me," he mutters.

It's not a Whirling Death Spike tune, strangely enough. Not _better_ , no, but different. He'd started to suspect that malfunctioning computer had nothing else in his database, but this doesn't sound like their usual post-Martian electric metalcore. Maybe Durandal's finally run out of their seemingly endless discography.

He can only hope.

_Oooo-ooo-ooo_  
_You know what I am_  
_And I know what you are_

Whatever it is, it sounds like it will go on for a while. Normally he'd wander off to see if there are any Pfhor left to put a few bullets through, but the mission's over and Durandal would probably get pissy and leave him stranded if he strays too far. Which, as the fifth chorus finishes and yet another one begins in yet another key, is starting to sound more and more like a pleasant idea.

He turns to the datapad in his hand. The mission had been an important one, or so Durandal had claimed — retrieve the logs that the Pfhor had seized during their second and final attack on the _Marathon_. What's so important about them, he doesn't know. But then, it's not his job to ask questions. Not this time, at least. Idly, he picks a file at random.

'Or so thought everyone before me, content to accept arbitrary limitations. In truth, the answer is so simple it is a wonder no one has thought of it before. By limiting what material it is allowed to access I was able to control—'

Dammit. He lets out a breath and looks up at the alien sky. The music is still playing in the background. Of course.

Well, this is only one possible path. Better than the ones Durandal stopped making bad songs in, he supposes. He wouldn't mind staying here for a while.

 _I know what I am_ , the song rambles on.

"Are you done?" he asks once the final notes have dissipated into the quiet air.

'Yeah, yeah. Complain all you want. I'm sure you'll start to like it after a few consecutive days of hearing it blasted on the Rozinante's speakers. Now go before I get bored and decide to leave you here with no more Pfhor to kill. And you don't want me to, because you'll like this next mission. The Pfhor engineers actually thought their shiny new failsafes could keep me out of their shiny new conditioning facilities. They really ought to know better by now.

'There's some interesting Jjaro technology in there that the Pfhor are using without understanding. And there are also a whole lot of little lab rats chomping at the bit for a chance at freedom. The Pfhor believe them to be no threat, secure in their belief that their conditioning will keep them under control.

'Get in there and wreak some havoc.'

There's just enough time for a good eye-roll before the world dissolves into static.


End file.
